People on Trip: Doug, Chris, Kyle, Don, Steve and Tyler
Distance: 28.6 miles over three days
Total Climbing Elevation: 6,665 feet
The original plan was to hike to Blodgett Lake and base camp there for both nights. Kyle was able to get a hold of a fish guy at the forest service who said that High Lake was worth going to (which was off of the main trail). So at the last minute, we decided to spend the first night at High Lake. We knew that the hike to High Lake was going to be more difficult than the previous plan...but we were not prepared for the trail conditions.
Here are a few photos of the trail:
We left for the trail head at about 5:30 AM from Helena, MT and got there near 8:30 AM. I knew my hip flexors were going to be giving me problems, and so I kept a pretty slow pace through the whole hike. At mile six, we came to the trail junction with High Lake. I think it was near 11:30 AM. We figured it wouldn't take us more than 1-1.5 hours to get to high lake, since it was about 2.5 miles from the trail junction.
We first had to wade through a creek, but it wasn't a difficult crossing. I had decided to just walk through it with my trail running shoes and my socks, thinking that they would easily dry off during the hike. This was the biggest mistake I made on this trip. In the future, I am going to use my lightweight mesh shoes to cross creeks, and keep my shoes and socks dry. I ended up getting a blister on my foot that would get large and painful the next day.
After the creek crossing, the trail was difficult to find. Within a few minutes, we found the trail and made the steep ascent up the mountain. Up until about 3/4 of the way there, the trail was very easy to follow. However, it became impossible to follow the trail when we hit the boulder fields and the steep snow fields. This is when things slowed way down because each step was important....if we got it wrong at certain points, it would lead to certain death.
Here are some photos on the hike up to High Lake:
We decided to avoid a snow field in this case.
We quickly realized that we weren't going to go anywhere very fast in this terrain.
Just above the ridge in this photo is High Lake.
Surprisingly, stopping to stretch my hip flexors on the trail prevented them from getting too sore to where I could't take a step with one leg. I knew that we would be climbing around 2500 ft in elevation for this 2.5 mile stretch of the hike....which was way more difficult than the hike I did before that gave me major problems. Looking back on this, I think taking shorter strides, more breaks and stretching on the trail, along with taking Aleve several weeks before hand, really helped me out.
We could see where the lake was, but it was hard to estimate distance with how huge everything was. I think we ended up getting to the lake at around 3:00-3:30 PM....which means that it took us around 3.5 hours to get hike this 2.5 mile stretch (which included lunch)!
When we got to the lake, it was cold (in the mid 40's) and it was sprinkling. We found an old cabin that people used when at the lake. It was patched up to handle the leaks, and it was by far from luxurious, but it did provide us shelter and place to sleep for the night. All six of us were able to sleep in the cabin. At this point my feet were constantly getting colder from being soaked in the creek earlier that day. I didn't want to get my dry pair of socks wet, because I knew my trail runners were still wet and if the weather was going to stay like it was, I didn't want to have cold feet at night. This prevented me from getting any sleep, while everyone else was able to take a good nap until about 6 PM or so.
The second I noticed that it stopped raining, I got up and started to work on a fire. Don got up as well, and we both immediately started to collect wood for the fire. Don is by far the best wood collector I've ever met! Within 15-20 minutes, we had a raging fire going and I was drying out my wet socks and shoes.
It was obvious the next task was going to be fishing! So most of us grabbed our poles and fished the lake. I believe Kyle caught 2 or 3 fish, Steve caught 2 fish and I caught 4 fish. My dad and I were the only ones to eat the fish. Most of the fish were pretty skinny, but it did provide a decent meal. We had fun hanging around the fire, smoking cigars and chatting. We did hang our food that night.
The following day my dad, Don and I were up early (at around 6 or so). I collected wood to boil water for breakfast and cofee. I don't think anyone else got up until 7:30 or so. I know that night I didn't sleep more than 3-4 hours, because I was nervous about dumping my down bag into a puddle of water that I was sleeping next to in the cabin. Everyone else seemed to get a pretty good night's sleep.
In my infinite wisdom, I did not pull down the bear bag rope's wisely, and so I got them stuck in the tree. Lucky for us we had spiderman on the trip (Kyle), who courageously climbed the tree and saved our rope! I wish I had gotten this on video.
We left High Lake at around 9:30 AM and headed towards Blodgett Lake. Going down was much quicker than coming up, but it also seemed more dangerous. On one of the snow fields, Don had lost his balance and started sliding down the snow field. Luckily he was able to slow himself down enough where he didn't get hurt. This was the closest thing I have ever hiked that was almost rock climbing with a pack.
Look how steep this is!
The views were awesome.
I think we arrived at six mile meadow at around 12:30 PM and maybe nine mile meadow at around 1:30 PM. Six mile meadow was gorgeous, with great views and a cool waterfall.
When we got closer to Blodgett Lake, we came across a group that had tried to get to the lake with horses. The guy said he thought we could get to the lake, but they had stopped because of the three feet of snow they encountered on the trail. This was obviously not a good sign, but we didn't think it was going to prevent us from getting to the lake, so we pressed on. The three foot estimate of snow he had given us was more like 5-6 feet of snow in some parts. When we got near the lake, it was obvious that this was not going to be a great place to camp. We stopped for a break while Kyle and Don made the final small hiking stretch to the lake, to check it out.
At that point we had hiked about 8 miles that day and the last part of the blodgett trail wore us out having to go through the snow. But we decided the best place to camp was going to be at 6 mile meadows (so 6 miles back down the trail). So we got back onto the trail. Another wise decision I had made on the trip was to not eat lunch when everyone else had stopped, and to just eat lunch when we got to Blodgett Lake. Of course this was assuming we setup camp at the lake (which we didn't), and so the only thing I ate was a cliff bar that afternoon. At about 6 or so, I started to feel lightheaded. At about that time, a huge boulder fell down a mountain and made a lot of sound. My dad immediately reacted with a "Ohhh crap!!!" and I thought we were being charged by a bear or a moose. I knew he had his bear spray handy, so my immediate action was to jump off the trail and get behind my dad. When we discovered we weren't going to die, everyone of course laughed at my reaction. Everything seemed to be in slow motion to me at the time...as if I was smoking pot on the trail.
We arrived at six mile meadows near 7 PM. We had hiked about 14 miles that day, and we all were ready to setup camp and eat dinner. I was actually excited to be able to sleep in my tent, instead of the cabin. The bugs were in full force that evening, but they eventually calmed down and we enjoyed hanging around the fire. I did try to cook cake over the fire, but it was taking too long and so I put it directly on the coals (which of course burned the cake).
If I remember correctly, we headed for the trail head the next morning at 9:30 AM. We made it back to our cars at around 12 PM. We stopped at a restaurant in Hamilton for lunch.
For my reference, these are a few things that did not work well for me:
- Taking a torso pad and putting my legs on my pack at night. I kept on waking up with my legs being very uncomfortable.
- I got a bunch of soot and gunk on the bottom of my pot that I used in my wood stove. I definitely need a separate stuff sack for my pot...and a method for keeping the bottom cleaner.
- My bladder hose was too short.
- Be more conscious and aware of how much water I have and food I eat throughout the day.
- Instead of bringing hand sanitizer, I think soap would be more practical.
- It would make my wood stove setup easier if I shared the system with at least one other person. This would make setting up the fire faster.
- The petroleum jelly cotton balls were fantastic. I'm confident I could start a fire in any circumstance with these things.
- Getting to the trail head early was a smart idea.
- Having the group share 1-2 water filter pumps is the way to go.
- I'm satisfied with how my GPS functioned during the trip. There was a setting that I discovered after the trip that made the route re-calculate after High Lake that gave us problems, but it seemed to be accurate enough for what I was looking for. It is great to be able to see about how far you have left to go for a trail junction or a stopping point.
- I think the videos turned out better than I expected. They aren't great, and the zoom feature is pathetic, but the video quality is good enough and they are fun to watch after a trip. Next time I want to take more video footage.
- I'm very satisfied with the comfort level of my backpack. It transferred enough weight onto my hips that I think it would work fine with loads up to 25-30 lbs.
Thanks Kyle for the photos! If you have any additional photos you want me to include on this page, let me know.
